Method and apparatus for quantitative assessment of neuromotor disorders

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for quantitative assessment of neuromotor disorders using sensors and analyzing the data collected from the sensors to determine if a patient suffers any neuromotor disorders. In one embodiment, the present invention is a system for assessing neuromotor disorders in a body including a plurality of pressure sensors adapted for attachment to the body and measuring pressure, a med node connected to the plurality of pressure sensors for generating data corresponding to the plurality of pressure sensors, and an analysis unit connected to the med node for analyzing the data generated by the med node to determine the existence of a nueromotor disorder in the body.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/906,083 filed on Mar. 9, 2007, entitled “METHOD FOR QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF NEUROMOTOR DISORDERS” which is expressly incorporated herein in its entirety.

1. Field of the Invention.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for quantitative assessment of neuromotor disorders collecting data from sensors and analyzing the data collected from the sensors to determine if a patient suffers any neuromotor disorders.

2. Description of Related Art.

Recently, health care costs have increased at a rapid rate with much of the costs tied to the care and diagnosis of patients. However, the diagnosis of a patient can be costly since it may be hard for a human physician to quantitatively gauge what is wrong with a patient. This can be problematic because without a correct diagnosis, the physician may not administer the correct care for a patient. In addition, early stages of a disease or disability may not be readily apparent to a physician. These problems can be especially apparent with respect to neuromotor disorders since the type and severity of the neuromotor disorder may be concealed and/or hard to quantify.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention seeks to solve problems described above by providing a method and apparatus for quantitative assessment of neuromotor disorders.

In one embodiment, the present invention is a system for assessing neuromotor disorders in a body including a plurality of pressure sensors adapted for attachment to the body and measuring pressure, a med node connected to the plurality of pressure sensors for generating data corresponding to the plurality of pressure sensors, and an analysis unit connected to the med node for analyzing the data generated by the med node to determine the existence of a nueromotor disorder in the body.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The exact nature of this invention, as well as the objects and advantages thereof, will become readily apparent from consideration of the following specification in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals designate like parts throughout the figures thereof and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a handgrip device attached to a med node;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is an example of a screen for network setup on a handheld device;

FIG. 5 is an example of a screen for maximum voluntary contraction on a handheld device;

FIG. 6 is an example of a screen for a test set on a handheld device;

FIG. 7 is a graph depicting an example of frequency matching;

FIG. 8 is a graph depicting an example of cross-correlation;

FIG. 9 is a graph depicting results from a preliminary experiment; and

FIG. 10 is a chart of results from a preliminary experiment;

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram depicting an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention is a system for assessing neuromotor disorders in a body including a handgrip device 2, pressure sensors 4, a med node 6, wireless communication link 8, and an analysis unit 10.

Handgrip device 2 has pressure sensors 4 adapted for attachment to a body to measure pressure exerted by the body. The pressure exerted by the body could be from fingers of a hand or any other portion of the body. Pressure sensors 4 are used to measure both static and dynamic force and can be thin enough to enable non-intrusive measurement which is ideal for measuring forces without disturbing the dynamics of a test. Other sensors that can be used aside from pressure sensors 4 include, but are not limited to, sensors that detect galvanic skin response, flex, piezo-electric film, and temperatures.

Med node 6 is connected to the plurality of pressure sensors for generating data corresponding to the pressure sensed by the plurality of pressure sensors. It is also contemplated that med node 6 can be connected directly to handgrip device 2 as shown in FIG. 2. In one embodiment, med node 6 is customizable and complex enough to suit a range of applications, such as tracking knee motion after knee surgery or aiding Alzheimer patients residing in assisted living homes by detecting arousal and/or agitation by measuring skin conductance. Furthermore, med node 6 may support a variety of analog and digital sensors.

In another embodiment, med node 6 is software programmable and is customized for various applications and sensors. In another embodiment, on-chip memory blocks are available within med node 6 for data storage. In yet another embodiment, med node 6 is also used to generate data in conjunction with the pressure sensors 4 and/or the handgrip device 2.

Analysis unit 10 is connected to med node 6 and analyzes the data generated by med node 6 to determine the existence of a neuromotor disorder in the body. In one embodiment, analysis unit 10 is a handheld device such as a pocket PC, a mobile phone, a smart phone, an iPod®, etc. Analysis unit 10 and med node 6 can be connected by wireless communication link 8. Wireless communication link 8 can be, for example, radio waves, Bluetooth®, cellular communications, etc. Although wireless communication link 8 is depicted in FIG. 1, any sort of communication link is acceptable including but not limited to wired communication links.

Analysis unit 10 is responsible for collecting data from med node 6 and classifying the collected data. In one embodiment, analysis unit 10 coordinates and controls the overall functionality of the system including handgrip 2, pressure sensors 4, and med node 6. In another embodiment, analysis unit 10 also performs resource management to accommodate several objectives such as optimizing the power or enhancing the fault-tolerance. In yet another embodiment, analysis unit 10 communicates with other electronic devices such as a PC or the Internet. Furthermore, analysis unit 10 may be capable of interacting with patients.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the present invention as a process to detect neuromotor disorders. The process begins in step S-12. In step S-13, the network can be setup as shown in FIG. 4. The network can be set up by a doctor, a nurse, a hospital staff, a user, or any other person.

In step S-14, handgrip 2 and pressure sensors 4 are calibrated through placement of a body part of the user, such as hand digits, on pressure sensors 4. In one embodiment, calibration can be accomplished by assessing the maximum voluntary contraction of the user's body part at step S-16 as seen in FIG. 5.

In step S-18, the user or any other person chooses a test set that the user can perform as seen in FIG. 6. In step S-20 an analysis is performed to see if the process should be terminated. The process should be terminated in situations such as when the user does not want to perform any more test sets. The process should also be terminated if a predetermined condition has been met such as if further tests would be detrimental to the user. If the process should not be terminated the process proceeds to step S-22.

In step S-22, the user observes the movement pattern of a target force on analysis unit 10. The user then apples pressure to handgrip 2 and pressure sensors 4 to follow the pattern of the target force in step S-24. Analysis unit 10 analyzes the user's motor control ability in step S-26.

Analysis unit 10 determines if the data and analysis should be transmitted to an external server in step S-28. If the data and/or analysis should be transmitted, analysis unit 10 transmits the relevant information over a communication link such as the Internet in step S-30. However, if data and/or analysis transfer is inappropriate analysis unit 10 determines if the user wants to perform a new test in step S-32.

If the user does not want to perform a new test, but rather wants to repeat the same test, steps S-22 through S-28 can be repeated for the same test. However, if the user does not want to repeat the test, then step S-18 is repeated until the user wants to terminate. If the user wants to terminate in step S-20, then the process ends in step S-34.

To analyze the patient's motor control ability on analysis unit 10 in S-26, frequency matching, time-domain cross-correlation, variance measure, and/or force sharing can be performed with respect to the relevant data collected by the analysis unit 10. This analysis can not only measure the ability of fingers to track the reference signal, but also the ability of the individual fingers to coordinate amongst themselves.

Frequency matching can be determined using the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). More specifically, the DFT can be used to calculate the power spectrum of the reference signal, and the frequency at peak power (FPP) determined.

The DFT, X, of a signal x can be expressed by the equation:

${X(k)} = {\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{N}{{x(j)}\omega_{N}^{{({j - 1})}{({k - 1})}}}}$ where $\omega_{N} = ^{\frac{({{- 2}\; \pi \; i})}{N}}$

The power as a function of frequency can be calculated as:

P=X²

For the time series from each of the force sensors, the FPP is determined, and the difference between the reference FPP and the finger FPP calculated as shown in FIG. 7. Frequency matching yields a measure of the degree to which the frequency of force generation by individual fingers matches the target frequency as provided by the reference.

The ability of individual fingers, and the entire hand, to effectively track the reference signal in time can be calculated using the cross-correlation function. The cross-correlation is a measure of similarity between two signals, and can also be used to determine the relative time lag between two signals. The cross-correlation can be calculated as:

${R_{xy}(m)} = \frac{\sum\limits_{n = 0}^{N - m - 1}{x_{n + m}y_{n}}}{N - {m}}$

Where x and y are time series of length N, and m ranges from −N to N (or a specified shorter interval). The time lag (m) corresponding to the peak of the cross-correlation function can be used as an indicator of the time lag between the two signals, even if the signals are complex as shown in FIG. 8.

In addition to measuring the ability of fingers to track the reference signal, the cross-correlation can also be used to measure the ability of the individual fingers to coordinate amongst themselves. To measure the amount of coordination amongst fingers using the cross-correlation, the force time series from individual fingers are used as inputs (x and y) to the cross-correlation function. Peak cross-correlations and time lags at peak correlations can be measured for comparisons among fingers.

To calculate the error between the reference (target) force (R) and the force generated by an individual finger or the entire hand (F), the “variance accounted for” (VAF) can be calculated using the following equation:

${VAF} = {100 \star \left\lbrack {1 - \frac{\sum\limits_{t = 0}^{t = \tau}\left\lbrack {{R(t)} - {F(t)}} \right\rbrack^{2}}{\sum\limits_{t = 0}^{t = \tau}{R(t)}^{2}}} \right\rbrack}$

The VAF can express the tracking error of a given finger, or the hand, normalized to the variance of the reference signal. It is contemplated that normal people are able to track the targets well in testing such as testing explained below. This could lead to VAF values close to 100% for normal people, and that increased impairments on a patient could lead to a decrease in performance in tracking targets. This in turn could lead to a decrease in the VAF. Thus, healthy people could have a VAF close to 100% and impaired people could have a VAF<100% (i.e. 20%, 50%, etc.)

The force sharing ability (FS) of the fingers can be calculated using the following equation:

${FS} = \frac{{\sum{{{Var}F}_{i}(t)}} - {{{Var}F}_{tot}(t)}}{\sum{{{Var}F}_{i}(t)}}$

Where VarF_(t)(t) can be the variance in force (across cycles or trials) of the target force for an individual finger i at cycle timepoint t. VarF_(tot)(t) can be the variance (across cycles or trials) in the summed force produced by all the fingers at cycle timepoint t.

If FS is positive, then negative co-variation amongst finger forces can indicate extensive force sharing among the fingers. If FS is smaller or negative, then force sharing amongst the fingers can be reduced. Healthy people are expected to high, positive values of FS (i.e. 0.9-1), and FS would be expected to decrease with disease or injury.

Preliminary experiments conducted on unimpaired subjects (N=2) showed that subjects were able to finely modulate finger forces to achieve a desired average force as shown in FIG. 9. These experiments involved four test sets:

Test 1: The guide or the target can travel on a sinusoidal waveform between 0 and 100% of the patient's maximum strength. The period of the sine wave can be 6 seconds.

Test 2: This test can be used to evaluate the fatigability in patients. The target moves between 20% and 40% of the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) with a period of 200 ms. The patient is expected to follow the indicator by rapidly squeezing the handgrip device.

Test 3: This test can be used to evaluate the patient's ability to finely modulate force production. The guide moves between 15% and 30% of the MVC on a sinusoidal wave with a period of 6 seconds.

Test 4: This test can be used to test the high strength fine grain motor control. This test can be similar to test 3 except that the guide moves between 45% and 65% of the MVC.

The variance in errors between average force and target forces were 6.4±1.0%, 09±5%, 38±0.3% and 0.3±0.3% of the guide variance for Task 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively for both subjects over 6 trials. Subjects precisely matched the guide frequency (frequency differences<0.005 Hz for all trials). Cross-correlating the guide signal with the average force signal revealed that average forces from subjects lagged the guide forces by 80±100 ms and 300±0 ms for tasks 2 and 3. For tasks 1 and 4, the time mean time lags of −50 ms and −21 ms fell well within the variance 170 and 470 ms, respectively.

Whereas subjects were able to precisely track the guide signals, they did not accomplish this by generating comparable forces with each finger as shown in FIG. 9. Large forces produced by middle fingers compensated for small forces generated by index and little fingers, reflecting an effective force synergy that maintained target average forces. The variance in errors between each individual force and the target forces is shown for every task and subject in FIG. 10. In addition, in frequency domain, the difference of the peak in the power spectrum between each individual force and the target forces is shown. Please note that each data point in FIG. 10 is the average taken over 3 trials.

Obviously many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described. 

1. A system for assessing neuromotor disorders in a body, comprising: a plurality of pressure sensors adapted for attachment to the body and measuring pressure; a med node connected to the plurality of pressure sensors for generating data corresponding to the plurality of pressure sensors; and an analysis unit connected to the med node for analyzing the data generated by the med node to determine the existence of a nueromotor disorder in the body.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the analysis unit analyzes the data generated by the med node using frequency matching.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the analysis unit analyzes the data generated by the med node using time-domain cross-correlation.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the analysis unit analyzes the data generated by the med node using variance measure.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the analysis unit analyzes the data generated by the med node using force sharing.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the analysis unit analyzes the data generated by the med node using frequency matching, time-domain cross-correlation, variance measure, and force sharing.
 7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the analysis unit is a handheld device.
 8. A method of determining abnormal pressure pattern in a body, the steps of the method, comprising: sensing pressure from the body; generating data from the sensed pressure; and analyzing the generated data.
 9. The method of claim 8 further comprising analyzing the generated data from the sensed pressure to determine the existence of a nueromotor disorder in the body.
 10. The method of claim 9 wherein analyzing the generated data from the sensed pressure includes using frequency matching.
 11. The method of claim 9 wherein analyzing the generated data from the sensed pressure includes using time-domain cross-correlation.
 12. The method of claim 9 wherein analyzing the generated data from the sensed pressure includes using variance measure.
 13. The method of claim 9 wherein analyzing the generated data from the sensed pressure includes using force sharing.
 14. The method of claim 9 wherein analyzing the generated data from the sensed pressure includes using frequency matching, time-domain cross-correlation, variance measure, and force sharing. 